BLGH: Blog Home
A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in
chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog"
can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics,
or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog
combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media
related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an
interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily
textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog),
sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) or sexual in
nature (Adult blog), and are part of a wider network of social media.
In May 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 71 million
blogs.
History
Chronicles, commonplaces, diaries, perzines and amateur press associations can
all be seen as predecessors of blogs.
Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including
Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe,
e-mail lists and bulletin board systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum
software, such as WebEx, created running conversations with "threads". Threads
are topical connections between messages on a metaphorical "corkboard". Some
have likened blogging to the mass-observation movement of the mid-20th century.
1983-1990 (Pre-HTTP)
Usenet was the primary serial medium included in the original definition of the
World Wide Web. It featured the Moderated Newsgroup which allowed all posting in
a newsgroup to be under the control of an individual or small group. Most such
newsgroups were simply moderated discussion forums, however, in 1983-84, one
exception, named mod.ber, was created, named after and managed by an individual:
Brian E. Redman. Regularly, Redman and a few associates posted summaries of
interesting postings and threads taking place elsewhere on the net. With its
serial journal publishing style, presence on the pre-HTTP web and strong
similarity to the common blog form which features links to interesting and cool
places on the net chosen by the blogger, mod.ber had many of the characteristics
commonly associated with the term Blog. It ceased operation after approximately
8 months.
1994–2001
Main article: Online diary
Brad Fitzpatrick, an early blogger.The modern blog evolved from the online
diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most
such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. A few
called themselves "escribitionists". The Open Pages webring included members of
the online-journal community. Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal
blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized
as one of the earliest bloggers, as is Jerry Pournelle.
Other forms of journals kept online also existed. A notable example was game
programmer John Carmack's widely read journal, published via the finger
protocol. Some of the very earliest bloggers, like Steve Gibson of sCary's
Quakeholio (now Shacknews) and Stephen Heaslip of Blue's News (still running
since 1995 with online archives back to July 1996), evolved from the Quake scene
and Carmack's .plan updates. Steve Gibson was hired to blog full-time by Ritual
Entertainment on February 8th, 1997 , possibly making him the first hired
blogger.
Websites, including both corporate sites and personal homepages, had and still
often have "What's New" or "News" sections, often on the index page and sorted
by date. One example of a news based "weblog" is the Drudge Report founded by
the self-styled maverick reporter Matt Drudge, though apparently Drudge dislikes
this classification. Another is the Institute for Public Accuracy which began
posting news releases featuring several news-pegged one-paragraph quotes several
times a week beginning in 1998. One noteworthy early precursor to a blog was the
tongue-in-cheek personal website that was frequently updated by Usenet legend
Kibo.
Early weblogs were simply manually updated components of common websites.
However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of
web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process
feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted
in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize
today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a
typical aspect of "blogging". Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting
services, or they can be run using blog software, such as WordPress, Movable
Type, blogger or LiveJournal, or on regular web hosting services, such as
DreamHost.
The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form,
"blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the
phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May of 1999.
This was quickly adopted as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit
one's weblog or to post to one's weblog").
After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity: the site Xanga,
launched in 1996, had only 100 diaries by 1997, but over 20 million as of
December 2005. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being
further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog
tools:
Open Diary launched in October 1998, soon growing to thousands of online
diaries. Open Diary innovated the reader comment, becoming the first blog
community where readers could add comments to other writers' blog entries.
Brad Fitzpatrick, a well known blogger started LiveJournal in March 1999.
Andrew Smales created Pitas.com in July 1999 as an easier alternative to
maintaining a "news page" on a website, followed by Diaryland in September 1999,
focusing more on a personal diary community.
Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs) launched blogger.com in August 1999
(purchased by Google in February 2003)
Blogging combined the personal web page with tools to make linking to other
pages easier — specifically permalinks, blogrolls and TrackBacks. This, together
with weblog search engines enabled bloggers to track the threads that connected
them to others with similar interests.
2001–2004
Several broadly popular American blogs emerged in 2001: Andrew Sullivan's
AndrewSullivan.com, Ron Gunzburger's Politics1.com, Taegan Goddard's Political
Wire, Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit, Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs, and
Jerome Armstrong's MyDD — all blogging primarily on politics (two earlier
popular American political blogs were Bob Somerby's Daily Howler launched in
1998 and Mickey Kaus' Kausfiles launched in 1999).
By 2001, blogging was enough of a phenomenon that how-to manuals began to
appear, primarily focusing on technique. The importance of the blogging
community (and its relationship to larger society) increased rapidly.
Established schools of journalism began researching blogging and noting the
differences between journalism and blogging.
In 2002, Jerome Armstrong's friend and sometime business partner Markos
Moulitsas Zúniga began DailyKos. With up to a million visits a day during peak
events, it has now become one of the Internet's most popular blogs.
Also in 2002, many blogs focused on comments by U.S. Senate Majority Leader
Trent Lott. Senator Lott, at a party honoring U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond,
praised Senator Thurmond by suggesting that the United States would have been
better off had Thurmond been elected president. Lott's critics saw these
comments as a tacit approval of racial segregation, a policy advocated by
Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign. This view was reinforced by documents and
recorded interviews dug up by bloggers. (See Josh Marshall's Talking Points
Memo.) Though Lott's comments were made at a public event attended by the media,
no major media organizations reported on his controversial comments until after
blogs broke the story. Blogging helped to create a political crisis that forced
Lott to step down as majority leader.
The impact of this story gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news
dissemination. Though often seen as partisan gossips, bloggers sometimes lead
the way in bringing key information to public light, with mainstream media
having to follow their lead. More often, however, news blogs tend to react to
material already published by the mainstream media.
Since 2002, blogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in
breaking, shaping, and spinning news stories. The Iraq war saw bloggers taking
measured and passionate points of view that go beyond the traditional left-right
divide of the political spectrum.
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